Thread: Foreigners buying property to get U.S. residency USA TODAY

Foreigners buying property to get U.S. residency

Wealthy foreign nationals are heading to South Florida not just to buy distressed real estate, but with the additional hope of becoming U.S. residents, the Miami Herald reports.

The newspaper says that local immigration attorneys agree that an increasing number of Latin American and European clients are applying for investor visas, which can mean a fast track to residency and eventually citizenship, or the chance to live and work in the U.S. indefinitely.

Eduardo Namnum of Mexico got a green card after investing about $1 million in a Bonita Springs, Fla., restaurant. Namnum told the Herald that many of his friends from Mexico City are also buying real estate in South Florida. "There are very, very good deals," he said.

Several factors are encouraging foreigners to invest in South Florida. Investors can gain residency in the U.S. much faster than applicants sponsored by a family member, taking just four or five years compared with 12 to 15 years. Political or economic instability in other countries has also caused people to seek ways to invest their money abroad. Alfred Vizcarrondo, president of Doral-based real estate services firm AV Group, says people "are trying to put their money into something that means security."

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offers 10,000 EB-5 visas a year "to qualified individuals seeking permanent resident status on the basis of their engagement in a new commercial enterprise." Among the requirements, applicants must invest at least $1 million "into a new commercial enterprise" or at least $500,00 into a designated high-unemployment area. They must also create at least 10 full-time jobs or maintain employment for two years if investing in a "trouble business."

Read the details here.

(This post was written by Blair Brettschneider, a USA TODAY intern.)

Posted by Michael Winter at 05:03 PM/ET, August 11, 2009 in Economy, Money, Nation, World

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/20 ... PageReturn

The Mexican drug gangs can move a lot of people into the U.S. this way.

They have a lot of money to spend.

JohnDoe2 wrote:

"The Mexican drug gangs can move a lot of people into the U.S. this way.

They have a lot of money to spend."


And Tom Tancredo has warned us that these gangs are beginning to use small U.S. town businesses as fronts to "launder" their profits, and also run their people for local government seats in order to take over control of the official administration of small towns in the United States just as they have been able to do in Mexico.

It just gets gloomier and gloomier on the "big drug front'.

If the current US administration is shifting its focus to employers then I think these businesspeople could become prime suspects. Unfortunately I think they are going to emphasize BIG employers. These people are getting a break if they employ ten or more, right?

Another practice that has been occurring over the past several years is the fact that many foreigners have bought American property merely for "flipping" purposes: Purchasing the property, doing minimal "improvements" and then selling it to hapless Americans at a much higher price than that which they, the foreigners, paid.

Foreigners have been buying in SW FL for years, especially Germans and Eastern Europeans. It was a status symbol for them, and the idiocy I saw was those coming to buy were convinced by their countrymen to buy the properties they own at inflated prices.